


and to find just one other

by andfinallywearehome



Series: if you wait [1]
Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, after you see your soulmate when you turn 16, girl meets world of terror 3, gmwot3!rilaya, oh look its more gmwot3 fic, the one where you see colours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-26 12:40:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14402328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andfinallywearehome/pseuds/andfinallywearehome
Summary: Maya doesn't care about colour. Maya doesn't care about anything.[or: the one from maya's perspective.]





	and to find just one other

**Author's Note:**

> you ever wanted a girl meets world of terror 3/soulmate!au? you've come to the right place.
> 
>  
> 
> title comes from the song 'If You Wait' by london grammar, and i own nothing recognisable.

Maya doesn’t care about colour. Maya doesn’t care about anything.

  
She knows that’s absurd, of course it is, because everyone cares about colours, right? Everyone waits on the day they turn sixteen, the beginning of the rest of their lives, the day that they can start the search for their soulmate, but Maya has a life already, and she doesn’t need a new one, thank you very much. She’ll leave that to the suckers that have hope in their lives.

  
Her mom presents her with a card at the breakfast table, the morning of her sixteenth birthday. Maya smiles through it, and gracefully backs out when it’s time for her to make her way to school, but her father is gone, and no amount of smiles will change that, even if that waste of space doesn’t deserve her sadness.

  
She doesn’t want to find her soulmate today. Maybe a small part of her hopes she never finds her soulmate at all. _She_ doesn’t need anyone. She’s seen the effect it can have on people, watched her parents’ marriage dissolve right in front of her eyes because of it, when her dad got tired of the fact that he was looking at the world in black and white. Maya hopes he never gets to see in colour, because who is he to decide that she and her mom aren’t good enough? They’re plenty good enough, in their black and white world, on their own.

  
And yet Fate just _loves_ to laugh at her.

  
“Morning, Maya,” a chirpy voice says from behind her, and Maya has to hide the grimace that crosses her face because why does her locker have to be next to _Riley Matthews._

Just what she needs on her birthday.

She’s about to turn around and tell Matthews this, let her know that, just because the girl says hello to her every morning, just because she does Maya’s homework for her, doesn’t mean that they are friends, and she _does_ turn, having every intention of doing so -

  
\- and then the insult, the snarky line, dies on her lips, because Matthews’ eyes are _brown_ , and that stupid bow that always sits on her head is _red_ , and suddenly she can _see_.

  
_No. No, no, no._

  
“Maya?” She says softly, and her eyes - _her brown eyes_ \- are wide and concerned, as if she can’t contemplate why on earth Maya Hart is having some kind of identity crisis in front of her. How can she be so...so _calm_ about this? Can she not _see_?

  
Oh, God. She can’t see. Riley Matthews is still an innocent fifteen year old, and her world is still monochrome, and how Maya wishes that hers was too.

  
“I have to go,” she manages to say, before slamming her _red_ locker and all but sprinting up the stairs, as if in the hope that, as long as she gets away from Matthews, brightly coloured and beautiful Riley Matthews, that everything will go back to the way it had been.

  
It doesn’t.

  
\-- x --

She ends up in the library, curled at the very back of the room where she can have her existential crisis in peace.

  
What is she supposed to do with this? What on earth is supposed to happen now? All these years, she has kept Riley Matthews at a distance, throwing deathly glares and biting insults at her when she dares to try and get too close - all that effort to now go to waste, because the girl is her soulmate?

  
_Riley_ \- sweet, innocent little Riley has no idea that the girl who has tormented her since they were kids is the one that has been carved out to belong to her and her alone.

  
Doesn’t the universe enjoy messing with her?

  
As much time as Maya could spend going over the facts, they don’t provide her with any answers about what to do. She could just carry on as normal, as if nothing has happened, but the thought of that makes something in her chest clench painfully, because, oh yeah, Matthews is her _soulmate_ now, and the idea of willingly trying to hurt her in any way kind of makes her want to throw up a little. She could also just avoid Matthews for the rest of time - they’re sophomores, which means only two years until graduation, and then Matthews can head off to NYU and Maya can...Maya can do whatever it is people with no potential do, and this whole mess will be over - but, still, her insides clench. As much as she would like to deny it, her human nature tells her to be with her soulmate, whatever way that might be, which leaves her with only the third and final option.

  
Maybe she should try and get to _know_ Riley Matthews.

  
\-- x --

  
Update: getting to know Riley Matthews is not an easy feat.

  
Granted, Maya probably hasn’t made it easy for herself, given how she’s treated the girl in the past, but this biology project had seemed like the perfect opening. Making herself Riley’s partner would mean that they had to spend more time together, which means that Maya would be able to get to know her soulmate a little better.

She still can’t quite believe that she’s actually doing this at all.

  
It’s true; soulmates do make some people go crazy.

  
And yet, even with her attempts at being nice, she only manages to offend Riley more, the girl walking off with a _you know, if you want to be my partner, you really need to stop insulting me,_ and Maya curses herself because Matthews probably won’t even want to _look_ at her now, let alone be her stupid biology partner.

  
Maya seeks her out in the cafeteria during lunch; she’s sitting in the corner on her own, probably waiting for _Huckleberry_ Friar to show up, but that cowboy is just going to have to wait. This is a matter of the heart - the _Maya Hart_ \- that they’re dealing with here.

  
“I’m sorry,” is her opening line, and Riley’s head snaps up with a start.

  
“You’re...you’re sorry?” She looks like she can’t quite believe what she’s hearing, and, well, doesn’t that sting a little? The idea that Maya doesn’t know what right and wrong is enough to know when to apologise.

  
“Yeah,” Maya says gruffly, and then takes the empty seat opposite her. “I’m sorry I’m always such a jerk. Would you believe me if I said I didn’t mean to be?” Riley’s raised eyebrow says it all. “Yeah, thought not. But I _am_ sorry.”

  
Matthews watches her for a moment, as if trying to judge whether or not she’s being made a fool out of, before a small smile pulls at the corner of her mouth.

  
“Apology accepted, Maya,” she says, and Maya could almost weep with relief ( _almost_ ), and then: “Were you serious about wanting to be my biology partner?”

  
“If you’ll have me, Matthews.”

  
“Of course! We got this, peaches.”

  
Maya raises an eyebrow. “Okay, first things first: no pet names. I’m makin’ that a rule right now.”

  
Riley only laughs.

  
\-- x --

  
She would be lying if she said that she isn’t a little nervous.

  
It’s not a real date - at least, not to Matthews it isn’t - and they’re only meeting up to work on this biology project, but that’s not the issue. It’s going to just be Riley and Maya, no one else at school watching them, sitting in Riley’s home, _together_ , and, yeah, maybe she’s feeling a few pre-date nerves about this, especially when all she can think of is Mr Matthews answering the door to her, and the awkward conversation that would follow: no, she’s not here to insult his precious Riley again, she’s just here to do homework.

  
Lucky for her, Riley Matthews has a bedroom window.

  
“I would’ve let you in the front door,” Matthews says when Maya swings her legs through the window and finds herself sitting right next to her soulmate. She wonders if Riley can feel the weird spark of electric in the air at their close proximity, even if she doesn’t understand why yet.

  
“Front doors are overrated,” Maya replies, and the sound of Riley’s laughter, genuine laughter, is a sound she doesn’t think she could get tired of hearing.

  
\-- x--

  
Maya is so whipped for Riley that it’s unreal.

  
It’s not a gradual realisation, no, because those don’t seem to be a thing when it comes to her relationship with Riley; one day she’s sitting in class, and Riley has turned around to talk to her, _willingly_ , with that big beaming smile on her face like there’s no one else in the world she would rather see, and it just hits her in an instant, a stroke of lightening in a single moment.

  
Somewhere along the line, this _getting to know her soulmate_ business has become a genuine rush of affection for the girl in the hideous dresses.

  
Maya - as she later comes to realise - isn’t even mad about it.

  
\-- x --

  
Of course, she’s destined to mess everything up for herself. She’s Maya Hart, after all.

  
They’re sitting in Topanga’s, a small coffee house in their neighbourhood, and they’re supposed to be doing homework. Well, maybe Matthews is, but Maya certainly isn’t; she’s too busy watching her soulmate, in all her glory, as she chats animatedly about some trivial thing that Maya doesn’t care about. It doesn’t matter, though, because watching Riley’s eyes light up in the way that they do is worth listening to long spiel about nothing.

  
“Do you ever take those stupid bows off?” Maya asks, when her soulmate has to stop for breath every now and then.

  
Riley’s hand flutters up to the bow in her hair; it’s pastel blue today, to match her pastel blue dress. She looks great in it, of course she does, but Maya isn’t going to say that out loud.

  
“They’re not stupid!” Riley insists. “You love what I’m wearing, and we both know it.”

  
She beams at this, like she’s proud of herself.

  
“Don’t flatter yourself, Matthews,” Maya says, tongue in cheek as she too grins, despite herself. “Blue was never your colour.”

  
It’s like someone has suddenly thrown a bucket of cold water over Riley; she freezes up almost immediately, all traces of that sunny smile gone, and her voice is barely a whisper. “What?”

  
“I -- Hey, c’mon, Matthews, I just said that blue wasn’t your --” She stops. Oh. Oh, _no_.

  
“Maya, you -” Riley can’t even get the words out. “You can see colours?”

  
And Maya, unable to think of anything smart to say, unable to think of anything to say at all, simply ups and leaves.

\-- x --

 

She’s a mess. It’s official. Maya Penelope Hart is a mess -

  
\- and her soulmate is Riley Matthews.

  
Riley Matthews, beautiful and pure Riley Matthews, has Maya Penelope Hart, certified mess, as her soulmate, and the thought makes Maya want to burrow further under the blanket and never leave her room again. Riley doesn’t deserve this - she deserves someone like Friar, someone who she can depend on, not someone who will run away at the first sign of trouble.

  
She’s still wrapped up in her cocoon of blanket and self pity when she hears the window sliding open.

  
“Hey.”

  
She knows that voice. She’d know that voice anywhere.

  
“How d’you find where I live?” Maya asks, without looking at her.

  
“Maya.” There’s the sound of her crossing the room. “We’ve lived in the same neighbourhood since we were little kids. I’ve always known where you live.”

  
“Creep.”

  
“Says the girl who comes through _my_ window.” The bed dips as Riley perches on the end. “How long?”

  
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  
“I think you do. How long?”

  
She’s not going to let this go. Maya sighs. “A couple of months. Maybe less.”

  
“Around the time we became friends.”

  
“Yeah.” Maya finally, _finally_ , looks at her. She doesn’t look angry. “Sorry.”

  
“Why are you sorry?”

  
“Aren’t you gonna get all high and mighty and say I lied to you or betrayed your trust or something?”

  
Riley looks almost hurt by this assumption. “Why would I do that?”

  
“I don’t know. I just -- Everybody wants to find their soulmate, right? And you always got this face whenever you talked about it - wistful and sad and longing - and I -- I didn’t want to crush your dreams. I didn’t want you to be disappointed when you found out that you had a soulmate like me.”

  
“Maya.” Riley says her name like she’s about to start crying, and when she reaches for Maya and kisses her like she _needs_ it, Maya thinks she might start crying too, because this is how it _should_ _be_.

  
“Wow,” is all she can say, once she’s caught her breath and remembered how to make sounds that resemble words.

  
“Yeah.” Riley laces their fingers together. “Wow.”

  
\-- x --

  
The day Riley Matthews turns sixteen falls on a weekend. They agree to meet at Topanga’s for their first official date, and Maya takes extra time in the bathroom that morning, trying to make sure her appearance is perfect - which is ridiculous, because Riley knows what she looks like already, has kissed her in black and white plenty of times by now. She doesn’t need to go to all this effort. Maybe a part of her, still, after all this, is scared that Riley will take one look at her and realise that she could do so much better. She waves those thoughts away after a moment or two, however; whatever happens in the future will happen, but right here and now Riley Matthews is hers and no one else's. That thought is enough to put a smile on her face.

  
Riley is already there when she arrived, perched at the counter, her back to her, and Maya waits to feel nervous again, for the fear to start fluttering in her stomach, but it never comes.

  
She can do this.

  
“Hey, Riles,” she calls, and Riley turns to face her, a beaming smile on her face. Maya can almost pinpoint the exact moment that her girlfriend registers the colours for the first time, the way her brown eyes widen and her mouth opens in a slight gasp.

  
“ _Maya_ ,” she says, and that one word says it all.

  
Maya links their hands, and leans up slightly to kiss her on the mouth.

  
“C’mon,” she says. “Let’s do this.”


End file.
